Sully v.

Also 6, 8 sulley, 7 sullie. [app. ad. F. souiller: see SOIL v.¹]

  1.  trans. To pollute, defile; to soil, stain, tarnish.

  a.  in material sense. Now rare or poet.

1611.  Shaks., Wint. T., I. ii. 327. Sully the puritie and whitenesse of my Sheetes?

1615.  G. Sandys, Trav., 295. The roofe and sides are … sullied … with the smoke of torches.

1756.  C. Lucas, Ess. Waters, II. 164. A sky colored pellicule, sullied with dark spots.

1818.  Wordsw., Near Spring of Hermitage, 12. Rains, that make each rill a torrent, Neither sully it nor swell.

1885.  Manch. Exam., 25 March, 3/2. The delicate white of the vellum cover which a careless touch might sully.

  absol.  1601.  Holland, Pliny, II. 473. [How] that if one rule paper … therewith [sc. silver], it will draw blacke lines, and sullie as it doth.

  b.  in immaterial sense.

1591.  Shaks., 1 Hen. VI., IV. iv. 6. The ouer-daring Talbot Hath sullied all his glosse of former Honor By this vnheedfull … aduenture.

1612.  Two Noble K., I. ii. 5. Before we furthur Sully our glosse of youth.

1657.  Sparrow, Bk. Com. Prayer (1661), 33. Christmas and Epiphany … holy Church held for such high times of joy and Festivity, that they would not have one day among them sullied by … sorrow and fasting.

1706.  Phillips (ed. Kersey), s.v., To Sully the Fancy, to fill it with nasty, filthy, or impure Thoughts.

1729.  Shelvocke, Artillery, V. 355. I will not sully my Page with any Rehearsal of them.

1781.  Gibbon, Decl. & F., xxiv. II. 475. The purity of his virtue was sullied by excessive vanity.

1849.  Macaulay, Hist. Eng., v. I. 529. His life had been sullied by a great domestic crime.

1874.  Green, Short Hist., v. § 2 (1882), 226. A merciless massacre sullied the fame of his earlier exploits.

  † 2.  intr. To become soiled or tarnished. Obs.

1596.  Shaks., 1 Hen. IV., II. iv. 84. Looke you Francis, your white Canuas doublet will sulley.

1654.  Z. Coke, Logick, Pref. The Enamel of these Gayeties and Gauds, Sully and soon grow Dusky.

1670.  Sir Sackville Crow, in 12th Rep. Hist. MSS. Comm., App. v. 15. The silke sleizie and not Naples, which will soone grow rough, gather dust and sullie.

  Hence Sullying vbl. sb. and ppl. a.

1628.  Ford, Lover’s Mel., II. ii. The purest whitenesse is no such defence Against the sullying foulenesse of that fury.

1659.  C. Noble, Mod. Answ. to Immod. Queries, To Rdr. They are also sullyings and discolorings of the sacred memory of the dead.

1707.  Mortimer, Husb. (1721), I. 337. The sullying and foulness of the Floor.

1715.  Gay, Trivia, II. 32. Three sullying trades avoid with equal care.

1842.  Manning, Serm., vi. (1848), I. 84. He that leaves upon driven snow a dark and sullying touch.

1871.  Tennyson, Last Tourn., 679. Thro’ that sullying of our Queen.